Speaking of autism, have you all seen the reality show where a cross between Jack White and Willy Wonka and his two homo-ambiguous "wingmen" help teach a band of guys with Asperger's how to pick up unsuspecting women?

Personally, I think that teaching the socially awkward about guyliner and highlights is yet more proof of a hidden gay agenda (do you know what the queers are doing to the soil?). OTOH the 1980s is proof that men wearing make-up and glitter get more ass than anyone. I mean, we are talking about an era where Joan Jett looked more manly than the average all-guy hair band (and that I still want to have sex with her, well, what does that say about me?).

That said, I am still have reservations about peacocking-up nerds. I also have reservations about teaching nerds to "neg" women in clubs, as effective as it may be. "Neg" is pickup parlance for disparaging a woman, usually in a public way, in order to pique interest; it accomplishes two things: one, it artificially elevates the pick-up artist's social value and two, it shifts the "initiative" on the target by forcing them to either walk away or validate themselves having been de-valued.

Initiative is also a term used in interrogation techniques used by the FBI and CIA, and the "initiative" is the key to a successful interrogation and is sought to be wrested away in counter-interrogation techniques. "Negging" an interrogator is a good way to shift "initiative". Keep this in mind if you find yourself in Gitmo, or a singles club.

I learned the equivalent of "negging" and "initiative" in my teens and tweens because I was lucky enough to encounter and sought to emulate some of the world's most innovative con-artists in the early 1990s. I call them con-artists now, but back then we liked to think ourselves and phone phreaks and hackers -- but really most of the people I looked up to were short-con masters. Being able to talk my way into a phone switching central office when I was 18 or 19 gave me a needed confidence boost, and in picking up women, confidence is key. Soon I was talking my way into jobs, dates and sex.

But there is a vast chasm of difference between learning to talk someone out of their skirt and having a normal, healthy relationship; especially when then most vulnerable victims of the dating short-con are usually not normal or healthy themselves. Also, it is easy to over-wield these tools; to-wit, to use your powers for evil and not good. I often tell my friends that I am not quick to anger since I go for the jugular. As someone who was socially marginalized, like the contestants of the pick-up artist are now, I know that unresolved resentments can easily give way to the use of new pick-up techniques and social skills as tools of revenge and humiliation. Anyone who knew me from the 1990s phone scene knows the ugly, dark side of powers of persuasion given to someone of low social status and high intelligence.

So, I say to these con-testants caveat emptor, because while you will feel more confident when your win-to-loss ratio goes up you will not be truly happy unless you follow up with the other important life lessons. And starting this late in life doesn't fill me with confidence.